President Obama returns to Selma, Ala. this weekend for the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the historic march that marked a turning point in the nation’s civil rights movement.
Obama will speak Saturday against the backdrop of the Edmund Pettus Bridge where state troopers violently attacked the peaceful civil rights march led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
The venue and timing will make it difficult — if not impossible — for the first black president, or any president for that matter, not to shine a spotlight on the current state of race relations in this country.
The address comes just days after the Justice Department decided not to file federal civil-rights charges against former Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson who fatally shot a black teenager Michael Brown last year. At the same time Justice released a report painting a portrait of widespread racial bias in the Ferguson police department.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Friday that Obama accepts the conclusions of the DOJ report on Ferguson and offered no specific reaction to Wilson not being charged.
“The results of the investigation speak for themselves,” Earnest said.
During his time in office, Obama has increasingly spoken out on race after shying away from putting a sharp focus on the issue in his first few years in office. But even now, when the president has has spoken out, it’s usually been in response to explosive news events.
Just a few months after Obama took office, police awkwardly arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. outside his home after Gates forgot his key at night and was found forcing the door open.
Asked by reporters at a news conference about the incident, Obama gave a halting and careful response.
“I don’t know, not having been there and not having seen all the facts, but I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, that any of us would be pretty angry,” he said. “And No. 2, the Cambridge police – uhh – acted stupidly.”
Obama then seemed to become bolder after the death of Trayvon Martin, who was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer who was following him simply because he through he might do something suspicious.
The incident took place during Obama’s re-election in the spring of 2012.
Obama for the first time personalized the issue of race in a way most fathers and mothers around the country could understand.
“You know if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” Obama said.
A year later after a Florida jury cleared George Zimmerman, the shooter, of wrongdoing, Obama went further.
“Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” Obama said.
In his second term Obama has become more vocal on issues of race and more willing to speak about his own experience.
After a summer of protests in Ferguson, Mo. over the death of 18-year old Michael Brown, a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson, the officer who shot him.
In this instance, Obama clearly raised the issues of racial tensions between black communities and the police.
“The fact is in too many parts of this country a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color,” Obama said. “Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination on this country. And this is tragic because nobody needs good policing more than poor communities with higher crime rates.
Obama has just two years left in office and is freer now to express his true feelings on race in America after a string of police officer killings of unarmed black men has sparked a national dialogue on the issue.
But the president still must be mindful of public opinion and just how divisive and incendiary any comments on race can be in this environment.
CNN on Friday released a poll that found that four in 10 Americans believe race relations in the U.S. have gotten worse under the nation’s first black president, including 45 percent of whites and 26 percent of blacks.
And when it comes to voting rights and criminal justice, about half of Americans think more work needs to be done, the survey found. In addition, 50 percent say the nation’s criminal justice systems favors whites over blacks, while 43 percent think it treats both equally.
William Yeomans, who served as Sen. Edward Kennedy’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and spent 26 years on civil rights cases at the Justice Department, says Obama can’t avoid talking about the current state of race relations especially considering the DOJ’s report on the racial biases found in the Ferguson police department.
“What I hope he’ll say is that Ferguson is a reminder that while we’ve made enormous progress, there are some places where racism is still both subtle and overt and we need to do everything we can to eliminate racism,” he said.
On Friday Obama gave a small preview of the points he’ll likely make in his Saturday remarks.
Obama said that the racial discrimination in Ferguson extends far beyond the city’s police department and said that the ongoing civil rights movement continues to need to focus on changes to law enforcement and the way the police black communities.
Improving the way the police protect civil rights and liberties is an area that “requires collective action and mobilization” even a half century after an earlier generation moved the nation to change, Obama told The Joe Madison Radio Show on Sirius XM radio’s Urban View channel.
“I don’t think this is typical of what happens across the country, but it’s not an isolated incident,” he said of the DOJ’s findings in Ferguson. “I think there are circumstances in which trust between communities and law enforcement have broken down, and individuals or entire departments may not have the training or the accountability to make sure that they’re protecting and serving all people and not just some” he said.
In another interview Friday with radio host Tom Joyner, Obama said that civil rights is still an “unfinished project” 50 years after Bloody Sunday.
Obama last visited Selma in 2007 when he was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination on another anniversary weekend.
During remarks at the Brown Chapel AME church, then-Sen. Obama thanked members of the congregation who stood in protest on the bridge even when police moved in with tear gas and billy clubs.
“We’re in the presence today of giants whose shoulders we stand on,” Obama said. “People who battled on behalf not just of African-Americans but on behalf of all Americans, who battled for America’s soul, that shed blood, that endured taunts and torments.”
This time around Obama won’t be able to limit his comments to the past — but must also address the present and future of race relations in America.
“This is an historic occasion and it coincides with the Ferguson news. It would be off message for him not to say we still have work to do” when it comes to civil rights and race relations, Yeomans said.
